I
do not intend here to renew that war of crimination which for
years past has disturbed the country, and in which I have taken
a part perhaps more zealous than useful; but I call upon all men
who have in their hearts a love of the Union, and whose service
is not merely that of the lip, to look the question calmly but
fully in the face, that they may see the true cause of our
danger, which, from my examination, I believe to be that a
sectional hostility has been substituted for a general
fraternity, and thus the Government rendered powerless for the
ends for which it was instituted. The hearts of a portion of the
people have been perverted by that hostility, so that the powers
delegated by the compact of union are regarded not as means to
secure the welfare of all, but as instruments for the
destruction of a part--the minority section. How, then, have we
to provide a remedy? By strengthening this Government? By
instituting physical force to overawe the States, to coerce the
people living under them as members of sovereign communities to
pass under the yoke of the Federal Government? No, sir; I would
have this Union severed into thirty-three fragments sooner than
have that great evil befall constitutional liberty and
representative government. Our Government is an agency of
delegated and strictly limited powers. Its founders did not look
to its preservation by force; but the chain they wove to bind
these States together was one of love and mutual good offices.
They had broken the fetters of despotic power; they had
separated themselves from the mother-country upon the question
of community independence; and their sons will be degenerate
indeed if, clinging to the mere name and forms of free
government, they forge and rivet upon their posterity the
fetters which their ancestors broke....

"The remedy for these evils is to be found in the patriotism and
the affection of the people, if it exists; and, if it does not
exist, it is far better, instead of attempting to preserve a
forced and therefore fruitless Union, that we should peacefully
part and each pursue his separate course. It is not to this side
of the Chamber that we should look for propositions; it is not
here that we can ask for remedies. Complaints, with much
amplitude of specification, have gone forth from the